Telephone via Two Year Old

Happy Thanksgiving from the Kolda crew

I can't believe it is already the end of November. The last month has flown by like no other month during my service. Between well projects, GREs and now Thanksgiving, November has vanished in a snap. The rainy season is now nothing but a distant dream and the plague of bugs is slowly diminishing as the nights get cooler and cooler. I've even started sleeping in my sleeping bag. There is nothing like cuddling up in my sleeping bag with my cat and her kitten curled up at my feet to make a cold night comfortably toasty.

Penda, the sleeping bag hog

Last week I went to Sing Thiang Poullo to check up on the progress of digging. The work is going, though slowly. The diggers have hit rock which slows things down. "I prefer rock to sand," said Omar Balde, the lead digger. "When there is sand, we have to dig slowly and put cement in all the time. When there is rock it is harder to dig, but I don't have to think about the wall coming down on my head."

Omar Balde at work.

Everyone loves watching others work.

Chipping away. Where's a jack hammer when you need it?

Rock removed so far

It is a team of three and they work from 8am to nearly 6pm every day, except Friday, where they work half days since Friday is the day of prayer. Despite the rock everyone is very optimistic. Since it is the cold season there isn't any need to stop for several hours in the afternoon to avoid the intense heat of the day, which just fuels their optimism. "If it was May," Omar explained. "The rocks would be a very bad thing. The sun would be too hot to work all day, and it would take much longer to dig." But since it is cold season: "Rocks slow us down, but the sun doesn't. We will get these two wells done," he finished smiling.

I am hoping to go back to STP before I leave for Christmas just to get one last check for the year.

In other news, school just began - and I do mean just - and the actual school building that the government is putting together is of course still not finished. The students and teachers are back in the bamboo and tree limb rooms, much to their disappointment. Another disappointment is the lack of well at the school site. After months of delays and promises of 'starting soon' it has now come to the point of either we find someone ourselves to dig the well outside of the government's timeline or I send the money back. The principal wants to do the former because he doesn't trust the government to finish things by the time I leave - which is the requirement for Appropriate Projects, the organization through whom the financing for the well was possible - so we are going to see what happens in the next two months. If we don't start by January then I'll have to send it all back.

Which will seriously suck for all parties involved.

As for the family, my host mother, Aisatou, has returned to our compound at last after Boubacar's funeral. It is nice to have her back as another of my host moms (the third wife, Umu) has been gone for just shy of a month now. She and her baby, Jarta (who is my favorite kid), went off to her dad's village and has yet to return.

We've also started a new game with Alpha, my two year old brother. This little dude - who could easily personify the definition of the 'terrible twos' -  is learning more and more language every day. He's now picked up on how to say the negatives of words. For example, he hates wearing clothes and is subsequently always SO dirty. And when I tease him about it or admonish him for rubbing his dirty face all over my shirt and say 'You are so dirty', he looks up at me with the biggest smile and says, defiantly, 'Not dirty.' His communication in general is really quite humorous. Certain words he knows well but others not so much. As he tries to tell people what he wants he'll start out with clear words and then fill in the blanks of the sentence with sounds that imitate the words he thinks are right, but doesn't quite know. It's hilarious. But he repeats words like a parrot, so the kids in my family came up with a new game.

I call it Two Year Old Telephone.

Instead of the usual line of kids whispering in each other's ears to pass along a message, we just send Alpha. We'll call him over and tell him something like, "go tell mom to give you 25 CFA." He'll scamper off and bug his mother until she finally pays attention to him. Odds are that he's already forgotten what we asked him to say (which just amps up the hilarity factor), in which case he smashes some incoherent words together and points towards us. If he actually remembers it, he'll loudly tell the target what we told him to in his two year old speech. The target will tell him something in response and he scamper back to us with their answer, which is usually in the negative.

It's a great game to take up the time as we all wait for dinner to be ready and get our minds off the chill in the air.

There is one word he knows and I take full credit for his knowing it: 'No.' There are those occasions where someone will ask him to give him something - usually food - and he'll shout 'No!'. He doesn't use it at the wrong times, which leads me to believe that instead of a simple parroting action, he actually understands the word, which is awesome. I'm trying to teach him 'yes', 'mine', 'come' and 'go'. Easy words with easy associations in pulaar and personally I think teaching him 'mine' would just be fun. He, like all other two year olds, isn't the best sharer so why not teach him the word that goes along with 'no' when someone asks for his bowl or his cup or whatever is  in his hand at the time.

My lasting legacy.

With four and a half months left in village, I do think of that legacy outside of projects and work. I know that Alpha and Jarta will not remember me. Nor will my neighbor's son, who is Alpha's age. But perhaps if I can teach them a few English words part of me will linger with them even if they don't remember how they know those words.

The next two weeks will be spent in village and then I'll be back in Kolda to start my trip to America for Christmas. Once I get back I'll have around 100 days left of service. I really can't believe that it has already come down to this. I remember arriving and staring down 24 months as though it were an eternity. Now I've only got the last quarter left and much of it will be spent out of village because of Close of Service Conference, All Volunteer conference, closing medical appointments, needing internet access to close out grants and write up my service documentation. It is so strange to imagine I've come to the last home stretch.

My family and friends in village say I'm not allowed to leave.

Even if I didn't 'accomplish' a lot in terms of work, their wish for me to stay means everything in the world and makes these last year and a half time well spent.

Cheers to all and a very happy Thanksgiving!

-Christine

October, etc

We're now in the last third of October and I have struggled on just how to start writing this blog post. A lot has happened in the last month and a half. I'll start with the biggest and best news:

WELL PROJECT IS FULLY FUNDED!!

In under two months you donated just over $1700 and I could not be happier. Best news in the world to be in my inbox when I came to Kolda for and illness three weeks ago. Not only was it fully funded, but the money was already in my bank account, waiting for me to pluck it out. When I returned to village I immediately talked to Kebou (the man who pretty much arranged the whole project) and he was ecstatic. Apparently he'd been fending off some not so nice things being said about me since the wells weren't being dug immediately and he couldn't wait to rub this in their faces.

His joy was nothing compared to Moussa's when he came around my hut later the next day just to greet me. He had come to Badion to pick up medicine for their Health Hut (the lowest level of medical facility in Senegal) and had to return with it, but said he'd be back in the next couple days to talk over the plans, get the village's money together and start this ball rolling. As with everything in this country, the few days were stretched into several weeks (Tabaski, the largest Islamic holiday, in the midst slowed things even more) but when I return to village we will be going to a city called Velingara to buy all the materials and get transport for it all. My hope is to break ground by the end of the month. Optimistic? Probably. But at this point I figure it couldn't hurt and as long as we start by mid November we should still be on a timetable that will fit with my departure in - now -  under six months. Paperwork and all.

That's another bit of news. I'm in the last quarter of my service. I remember last year feeling as though I would never make it to this point. Staring down the long line of 17 months is daunting. Six months, less so. Now I worry about getting all my work done before I leave, whereas last year I was worried about being bored out of my mind since I had none.

What a difference a year makes.

Though, in some cases, a year doesn't seem to make any difference at all. In fact, some things repeat themselves.

Last year I wrote about the tragic death of my 16 year old host sister, Kumba. This year, I must right about the loss of my 10 1/2 month old baby host brother, Boubacar.

He'd been sick for several weeks. Extremely high fever, diarrhea, vomiting and refusing to eat. This was common with a lot of young kids in my village. The other two 'babies' - one year and two year old - in my family were also very sick. They all went to the health post and got medication. But Boubacar didn't respond in the same way. He'd get better a little and then revert. Five times in a month my host mom - his mother - went to the health post and got different medicine for him. None of it worked. In the last few days Boubacar, the little boy everyone teased was my husband, was a shell of his former, fat, healthy self. The soft spot on the top of his head was sunken, his eyes were big and sunken. His body looked too small for his head and his mouth and tongue were white. His body was always hot to the touch. Not just warm, but hot. He couldn't sit up. He would just lie on his back, or his side, or his stomach - whichever position he was put in, for he no longer even rolled over - and stare out. He stopped making fussy noises. Didn't cry.

The day he died, the 14th of October, my host mom mentioned that she needed to take him to Velingara, to the larger, better equipped hospital 30km away. But it was too late. Around noon, as his mother thought he was asleep, his little body gave out. He died under the shade of a mango tree.

I was on a walk for most of the morning and came back around 12:30 or so. Everything was oddly quiet in the compound and my host mother's mom, Turi, was sitting under the mango tree next to my hut. My host dad's big yellow mat was laid out in front of my hut. My host brother, Ibrihima, sat in a chair, bent over his knees with his face in his hands. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the dark forms of many women in my host mother's hut. "What happened?" I asked.

"Boubacar died," replied Turi.

My host dad came out of his hut a second later. I stared at him as he repeated the same thing that Turi just told me. No matter that I had finally, verbally, acknowledged that Boubacar was dying that very morning - I was stunned. I sat down next to one of my sisters and did my best to hold back tears as a few more people trickled in and my friend and neighbor, Hawa, sat next to me. She briefly put a hand on my shoulder in support before starting the typical greetings.

There is nothing more surreal than hearing the response 'Peace Only' after someone asks how the kids of your family are. That is, I think, the Senegalese in a single phrase. No matter what is going on, you and your family are always at peace. It made me angry to hear it. All I wanted to say was 'Things are not good. Things are awful. A baby is dead. That is how my family is.'

But I didn't. I said 'Peace Only' and continued to sit, feeling just as helpless and utterly unprepared to face death in this culture as I did a year ago when I was still new. I can never remember the phrases and prayers that are said to a person in a time of loss. For the same reason I can never remember the phrases and prayers that are said for holidays like Korite and Tabaski - the situation for their use just doesn't arise often enough for me to remember them.

That day was nothing like the day we found out Kumba died. There was no theatrics. No un-ending wailing. My host dad didn't cry. Our compound wasn't beset with a hundred people coming from the surrounding villages. No distant relatives made plans to visit the family. Under Islamic tradition, Boubacar was wrapped in white fabric (white is the color of death here) and the men - and men only - went to the graveyard and buried him that afternoon. 

For the rest of the day I listened and observed. I played the part of the foreigner who couldn't understand the language being whispered around me. I heard (or perhaps merely understood) for the first time questions of blame, what happened, what lead to the death and if it could have been prevented. On the whole curiosity about what Boubacar died of didn't exist. In America, one of the first questions out of our mouths is 'What happened?/How did he die?/What was he sick with?' Here, such questions make no sense because the answer doesn't mean anything. Knowing isn't going to change the fact that this child is dead, so why does it matter how he died?

But even those whispers were few and brief. Devine Will is a cornerstone of Senegalese culture. People live, are sick, get well, and die by the Will of Allah. No human has any right to question His methods or reasons. What is done, is done.

Even knowing that, I still couldn't help but question why there was such a huge difference between the reaction to Kumba's death and Boubacar's. The conclusion I came to is this: Boubacar was sick for a long time. Mine could not have been the only acknowledgement that he was dying. I was probably a late comer to that particular revelation. Infant and child mortality is high - relatively speaking - in Senegal. Most especially in rural, moderately remote villages like mine. Culturally, pregnancy is not spoken of because that life does not yet exist. A baby is only alive after it is born and even then, it doesn't get a name until a week after birth. This is one of the many obstacles to getting pregnant women to go to pre-natal visits. Acknowledging the pregnancy and recognizing the life within as truly alive is going to take a while to take hold.

This particular cultural aspect may have also played into the subdued post mortem atmosphere: Boubacar hadn't really started his life yet. He barely recognized himself in a mirror. Kumba, on the other hand, was a vibrant, vigorous, rambunctious 16 year old, bubbling over with life and personality. She had demonstrated so much potential.

A loss far more shocking and tragic when looked through these filters.

My family made it through another Tabaski on the heals of death. Full of oily rice, goat meat and macaroni noodles. My host mother's absence was the only real evidence that anything had happened. My host siblings were playing and fighting like usual. My host dad was smiling and enjoying the holiday like everyone else. Boubacar's clothes were passed to his brothers. He'd been a fat baby so his clothes were big enough for Jarta - the one year old - and he even had one outfit that he could swim in that now fits my two year old brother, Alpha. It felt strange to see the two of them in clothes I had seen Boubacar wearing only a few days before.

Life must go on.

So it does.

As I look towards the end of October and the beginning of November there are lots of things to fill the space. School will open this week, despite the fact that it was supposed to open 2 weeks ago. So my scholarship girls will finally be back in village, supplies will be in boutiques for me to buy and we can have a nice little ceremony for the girls and pass out certificates. I'm looking forward to that day. Hopefully my principal will be back so I can plan it with him.

The new Agriculture volunteers have arrived, making my stage the oldest group of volunteers in country. An extremely odd notion. We've already been saying goodbye to several Ag volunteer friends here in Kolda who are heading home with 2 years of service completed. I hated saying goodbye to the last Health group. This is no easier. They've been our mentors, councilors, friends and guides through the last year and a half. Ours was the group that made theirs no longer the 'newbies'. Their departure now makes our group the 'oldies'. It is said that we don't choose our friends here in the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps chooses our friends for us. Seems to me that the Peace Corps chose rather well for us down here in Kolda. We call ourselves a family, and in many respects we are.

It isn't easy to say goodbye to family members who move away.

The well project, as I mentioned in the beginning, will hopefully move forward smoothly enough and I've got about 2 weeks or so until I sit the GREs. I haven't been able to do as much studying as I hoped, but I'll make do. By that time I'll have just a hair over a month until I head to America and home for Christmas.

I plan on posting pictures as the well project moves along so stay tuned.

Cheers to all and a Happy Halloween.

Save me a few Reece's Peanut Butter Cups.

-Christine

Kittens and N'Ice Cream

Just like I promised, here are some pictures of my new kittens. Go ahead, melt. I won't judge.

Morning of Korite. Less than 8 hours old

One week old and just a pile of kitten fluff

Three weeks old and trying to get out of the box

Kitten with the black spot is the oldest. Haven't named him yet.
He's a cautious little fellow

This is Penda (named after my counterpart).
She's very playful and has been trying to escape the box for a week.

Wide eyed and romping around momma

Except Julde (named for the Pulaar word for Korite, since he was born on that day)
Always sleeping. This time curled up with the bunny.

Too keep this post from being completely 'kittens-in-a-box' centered I'd like to tell a tale about animals and the Senegalese culture. Fair warning, it does have a lot to do with my cat, Tennan. (I'm so much a cat lady it's crazy)

There is a strange dichotomy of attitudes and treatment of animals here. Animals are a lesser form of life. They are not worthy of concern, remorse, respect, spending money (eg medicine or food) when tea could be had, and animals are the dumbest of all living creatures (read: they are incapable of learning). Dragging them across the compounds by one leg, folding goats/sheep up into a basket and strapping them to the back of a bike is no problem. Need to transport a chicken long distance? Tie their legs together and hang them upside down from the handle of a motorcycle or bike. Have a small cow? Hog tie it and haul it on top of a bus. Horse not 'behaving', balking or 'not moving fast enough' - take a tree limb/rope and beat the crap out of it. Nothing but your hands? Closed fist in the jaw a couple times will make them listen.

Goats and sheep regularly eat themselves to death. Or they get hit by motos, or even occasional get eaten by the few predators in the woods where they are grazed (if they are even taken out to graze). They waltz through huts and into the cooking area, leaving a trail of little black balls of poop as a thank you gift. Any animal on four (or two) legs can lick out a bowl of remaining rice, sauce, veggie scraps, etc and people will scare them away with a few kicks or waves of a tree branch and then promptly dole out the family meal in the same bowl from which 6 people will soon eat.

Horses, donkeys and cows can be worked to death - underfed especially during the raining season when they are out in the fields pulling plows 6 hours a day (ironic, really, since the rainy season provides so much free grass to eat) - or starve to death because people cannot afford/refuse to buy adequate food during the dry season 8 months of the year.

These types of actions scream 'we couldn't care less about these animals'. But on the flip side of this dichotomy is a value system [albeit restricted] applied to the same animals.

Case in point: my little brother, Alpha, is now 2 years old and he is the walking, talking, breathing example of the 'terrible twos' label. He's a holy terror to animals. His entire life he has watched animals get smacked with sticks, kicked and hit with anything in reach. That is all he knows about animals. See them = hit them. Older, larger animals he can't catch and he is a bit afraid of them. But baby animals are easy pickings. Two weeks ago he beat a baby goat to death.

Take a moment to let that sink in.

He beat a baby goat to death.

When my host dad found out about it three days later and at night, he beat the kid for it. He told him why he was beating him, but at 2 years old - and screaming at the top of his lungs - he understands less Pulaar than I do and most certainly was not listening to anything that was being said.

If people (most especially children) cause bad things to happen to animals, there is hell to pay. No matter what the Senegalese think of the mental/emotional capacity of the animals they own or how treatment directly relates to behavior, every single one is money on legs. Goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, horses, cows, and donkeys can all be sold to pay for one thing or another. Or they can be eaten to sustain the family. They have value. In place of saving money in a bank - which more often that not is just too far away and requires the ability to read and write French - animals are a family's savings. 'Piggy Bank' takes on a whole new meaning.

Cats and dogs, on the other hand, have no value what-so-ever and can even be seen as a menace to society.

The oddity that is my gentle treatment of Tennan (and previously Talata) is now such old news that people in my village just enjoy asking me how she is and laughing when I answer with the same answer one gives when asked about a person: "Hono Tennan? [How is Tennan?]" "Jam tan mbo woni" [She is peace only]. My closer friends felt bad for me after Talata disappeared, the nicer ones telling me he just went out to find some lady friends like all males do.

When I returned from Kolda 2 weeks ago Tennan was sick. I won't go into the whole story, but she had some sort of infection and she needed medicine. There is no vet anywhere near my village. Kolda is the closest. So I needed to get the medicine from my health post. Just a simple children's amoxocyllin. Inexpensive and easy to use because it dissolved in water and I could use my eye dropper to force Tennan to drink it. When I asked the ICP (guy in charge of the health post who has the medical training equivalent of nurse practitioner) if I could have the medicine and told him why he stared at me like I'd grown a second and third head.

"I don't have time for this," he said dismissively. "Medicine is for people, not for cats."

Now, I totally understand this. The medical supply chain in this country is deplorable and people really are more important that animals. I get that. I agree with it. That said, there is no vet; I was asking for a medicine they had in extreme surplus and I had no other option.

Tennan is my sanity. Losing Talata was hard enough, if anything happened to Tennan I'd go bonkers. Your opinions of my dependence on a four legged creature for my sanity are what they are, but when my day feels like hell I can always go into my hut and cuddle with my cat who loves me even though I speak Pulaar like a 4 year old.

I went back to my hut, a bit irrationally upset now that I look back on it - but extenuating circumstances of little sleep and bad stomach problems for a week exacerbated all issues at that point - and called my parents. I was not quiet about my distress and anger at being so coldly dismissed when my cat was suffering.

My host dad heard me and came into my room after I got off the phone. He asked me what was wrong, insisting that I tell him after I said it was stupid and nothing. "You are crying," he said. "It is not nothing." So I explained about Tennan and the need for medicine. "I know the way I think about animals is different than everyone else," I told him in the end. "But Tennan is my health [I couldn't remember the word for sanity in French - the language that comes out when I'm emotionally stressed out, apparently]. She is my friend."

He looked at me and shook his head. "No, Aisatou. It is not stupid and it is not nothing. I know you. You care about all animals. Their health is sacred to you. I know how much you love your cat. I will talk to the ICP."

Shamed by having the chief come to him and ask why I was refused medicine, the ICP told a song a dance story of not understanding me. He said he thought I was talking about my younger brother and wanted to buy medicine without having a consultation. Utter BS, but whatever. I got the medicine and Tennan got better.

Yay for happy endings, right?

I try not to think about what might have happened if my host dad hadn't been so understanding, or if the ICP had stood his ground. Western ideas and treatment of animals is extremely foreign in this part of the world. Animals are animals. They exist to serve us or else there is no other reason to care. Overpopulation of cats and dogs is handled by mass poisoning and drownings. Population control is practically impossible (spaying is impossible outside of Dakar and extremely expensive; few people take the trouble to neuter dogs) and in the case of those animals that 'matter' (donkeys, cows, sheep, etc) it is not desired. Goats and sheep are as prodigious at breeding as rabbits so that's just more free money, provided that they live.

I didn't mean to make this post depressing and I'm sorry if I brought anyone down with my tales of animal woe. To lift your spirits (and mine) here is a lovey picture of the ice cream I pretty much inhaled at N'Ice Cream while here in Dakar.

This is Obama flavor and Rock flavor.
Otherwise known as Triple chocolate ice cream (Obama)
and chocolate and peanut topping mixed with vanilla (Rock)
SO GOOD

I hope to have an update on fundraising for my well project by my next update. If you'd like to help that along please click Sing Thiang Poullo Well Project. To read about the project in more detail, take a gander at my last blog post, Water For Sing Thiang Poullo.

Upcoming events include returning to village next week, planning the ceremony for the girls' scholarship with my middle school principal, studying for my upcoming GREs and planning a sexual health education class with my friend Julia Bowers that will take place at the middle school as well. Also hope to do some mural paintings. My goal is to do a world map, a map of Africa and one of Senegal. As in America, geography has gone by the wayside in classroom curriculum so perhaps a giant multi-colored map will spark some questions and discussions about other countries and the world in general.

Cheers!
Christine

Water For Sing Thiang Poullo

I received news a few days ago that my grant request for a well project in another village has been approved. I've referred to a well grant in the last few posts with little detail, so today I'm going to start from the beginning and tell you all a story of how this project even came to be.

Laundry and water gathering at the one well in Sing Thiang Poullo

Sing Thiang Poullo (pronounced Seen--Chang--Poolo) is a remote village approximately 25km (about 15 miles) northwest of my village, Badion. I'd been there before when I accompanied my counterpart on a meningitis vaccination tourney. I remember thinking to myself how lucky I was to be in Badion - 'the big city' - with easy access to the main road and a market every day.

A man I really only knew in passing, Kebou Camara, came to talk to me about a friend of his in this village and their water problems. At this time particular time, just after my birthday, The Appropriate Projects grant for my school well had just been approved and I was in the middle of trying to understand why there were delays in starting the actual work (government interference is sooo annoying sometimes).

"The chief found out about you giving a well to the middle school," said Kebou, "and he wants to meet with you about getting a well in his village." I asked him to explain a bit more, as I can't just go around promising wells for people who don't really need it, nor can I help finance private wells (such as those found in individual family compounds); it has to be a real, community wide need. So he invited me to his house to sit down and discuss the issue and of course to make some tea.

"There is no water over there," he began, dumping a packet of tea leaves into the small green tea pot. "They have only one well - one! - for their entire village." That snatched my attention.

"How many people are in the village?" I asked him. He shook his head slight and frowned. "I'm not sure," he replied, fanning the coals. "300 I think. Maybe more but that isn't the whole problem." Not the whole problem? I thought as he dumped a ton of sugar into the now boiling tea. 300 people and one well is a large problem already. "The well is far from the houses and all of the animals come to drink there."

Now that's a problem.

Sipping the first round of the strong, extremely sugary tea, he told me that the water table was between 30 and 35 meters (98-115 feet) and two other wells had long since dried up/collapsed because of 'stupid men who stole the village's money and told them to dig in the wrong spot'. So water was very hard to come by, especially during the dry/hot season from March to July.

I told Kebou it might be possible to do something about it, but I first wanted to meet with the village chief and see for myself. He agreed and a week later I went out to the village. I didn't have any of the forms, or have much of a clue as to what kind of grant I would need  - as that all depended on cost - but I was armed with a pen, a small notebook and some basic knowledge of needs and requirements.

A view into the village

There I met with the chief's son who is pretty much chief in all but name. Moussa Soh is around 40 years old, tall and extremely skinny. He toured me around the village, showing me the one good well where a bunch of women were pulling water, the two dead wells and introduced me to the co-leaders of the women's group. Over 330 people live in this village. They own, collectively, over 200 cattle, 40 horses, 60 donkeys and a ton of sheep and goats. All of them must have water. They all get it at one place (see the top picture).

Because of the distance of the well to the houses, women do all their laundry right at the well. Contamination from animals, the soap and bleach chemicals is prevalent. It seeps into the water table and is carried in their water storage containers.

Since women and girls are the primary water gatherers, a lot of time is spent waiting for their turn at the pulley, carrying benoirs and buckets back and forth. Time they could spend doing other things like cooking meals, looking after their kids, or taking a well deserved break under a shady tree.

Teenager on the way to the well to water his father's horse

We settled down outside Moussa's hut, tea already boiling away and talked about what he wanted, what I could provide and where we could meet in the middle in order to make this whole thing feasible. Since I didn't know the exact details of the requirements, I explained that any grant I could give would require a contribution from the community. They would have to pay for part of it, in cash and goods. A little surprised - as people are so used to just being handed everything without having to pay any part of it - he agreed.

I told him I'd get all the paperwork when I came back from my sisters's wedding and return to fill in all the information. His job, until I returned, was to find out the cost of everything: materials, what the well diggers would charge, supplies, etc. Grants take forever to get approved and because of the large expense of this project (2 wells at 35 meters and fully lined is not cheap) I knew the type of grant was going to be way more complex than the Appropriate Projects grant for the school. So the sooner submitted for approval the sooner we could start searching for financing. That was another surprise, but Moussa said he would do his part and wished me a peaceful trip back to America and his father gave a blessing for my sister's marriage.

One of the dead wells.

Water is there, if that tree growing out the side is any indication.
This is the well we're going to rehabilitate.

I flew back into Dakar in mid-May, talked to my supervisor about the proposed project and he told be because of the expense of the wells, I'd need a Peace Corps Partnership grant. The paperwork is a pain in the butt to fill out, and requires a lot of information - minute details that I didn't think to talk to Moussa about when I first visited. And the community contribution was much larger than I thought. 10% of the entire cost of the project has to be cash.

Cash.

Something this small farming community didn't have in droves.

Another 15% had to be 'in kind'. Food, lodging, labor, materials, etc. That part was easy to do. Hard part was going back to that village, finding out how much it was going to cost and then tell them that 10% had to be in cash.

As with everything in Senegal, I did not immediately go out to the village upon return to Badion. I had to wait for Kebou to arrange a time. There is no phone reception in Sing Thiang Poullo, so you have to send messages with others that are going there or hope to run into Moussa when he occasionally comes to Badion. But a day was finally set in June and Kebou and I met with the men and women who were concerned with the whole project.

The project leaders in Sing Thiang Poullo. Kebou is on the extreme left trying to stay out of the picture.
The chief (in blue on the left) and his son Moussa (in green to the right) gave me a chicken in thanks for helping them.

Four hours of discussion and figuring out percentages went on while men smoked, ate Kola nuts (a large nut the size of a walnut, bitter and chalk full of caffeine) and made tea. I asked them every question I could think of to fill in all the little boxes on the excel spreadsheet I had sitting on my lap. When we had finally filled in the boxes, and before I left, I explained to the group that if, during construction, more money was needed, I would not be able to ask for more. "What we ask for, we get and no more," I said. "You will have to pay any extra."

That brought on a few price changes on transportation costs and materials.

End result:

We will dig one new well and repair another well (see picture above), which will result in a fairly even distribution of water access through the village. The total cost is just a hair over $2000. $1760 needs to be graciously donated. The rest Sing Thiang Poullo is providing.

Since then I have gone back and forth with the Peace Corps office in Dakar, making changes, clarifications and adjustments to the request until at last I received a text from our grant coordinator saying that my request had been approved and posted on the Peace Corps site.

Best news ever.

The next day Moussa came by to greet me and check up on the grant and I was so excited to be able to tell him that Peace Corps had accepted his request and now we could raise money.

"Thanks be to Allah," he said with a large smile.

"Not done yet," I told him. "We still don't have the money."

He just smiled and said, "It will come if Allah wills it."

I'd like to add one more thing to this story and that is to point out its relative uniqueness. This community came to me and asked for help. Not to build them a road, or bring electricity. They didn't ask for a new school or a water tower. They asked for helped to dig some wells. A feasible project within both our means. This doesn't happen very often. They didn't balk at contributing to its success. Didn't complain or ask why I wasn't just giving it all to them like 'other Toubakos' [foreigners/whites]. They want and needs these wells so much they are willing to sell an animal if their cash reserves are low.

I can't even begin to explain how much of a big deal that is.

With just under 8 months left in my service, this is my last (and really first) big project. The time it will take get funding and dig will take me to January or February, at which time I will be attending my Close of Service conference, writing up reports and planning my flight home. The nature of this project, the true need of the community and the fact that they asked me for help makes me so anxious about making sure these wells get dug before I leave. I cannot pass this project on to anyone. And I cannot leave the country with an open grant. All things must be finished a month before we leave. No loose strings.

Which brings me to the point of this whole epic novel of a post: we need the funds.

If you would like to donate to this project, just follow this link: Sing Thiang Poullo Well Project and fill in the little white box on the right. Any amount helps. I and the wonderful people of Sing Thiang Poullo will be eternally in your debt.

My next post will be a return to normal programming. I've got three new kittens sleeping in a box by my bed, pictures of which I have in droves and will post to the brink of cuteness overload. That will come in two weeks or so as I'll be in Thies and Dakar for summit and my mid service medical exam. Gosh darn I'll have to suffer through pizza, ice cream, lots of wireless internet places, cheaper fruits and veggies and access to a grocery store.

Whatever shall I do?

Cheers!

Bugs and Movies

I've been trying to figure out how to best write this post and what to write about for the last month. Ramadan, rainy season, grant delays, GRE studying, a pregnant cat and one cat lost makes for a busy and yet utterly monotonous month. I've also started allowing movie viewing again, albeit with a much stricter hand. With the arrival of August - and now a mere 8 months to go - my thoughts have also be much occupied by the great question of what will happen after the Peace Corps.

Extremely premature, I know. But since I am taking my GREs in November my brain fast forwards to the reasons for taking the exam in the first place and the next thing you know I'm researching schools and setting up an excel spreadsheet on costs, GPA, median GRE scores, LSAT scores (because, yes, I'm seriously thinking of going to law school), etc. My brain goes into hyper-anxious mode and I'm already stressing over an exam that I won't take for 10 months and if I'll get into one of the 14 schools I am interested in.

I know: I'm utterly nuts.

So let's talk about what this blog is supposed to be about: Peace Corps Service and village life.

Update from my previous posts:

ALL MONEY COLLECTED FOR GIRLS' SCHOLARSHIP!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

So my girls will now be going to school for another year and I can't wait to be able to tell them and their families. I will receive the scholarship money in September and we'll do some kind of ceremony to acknowledge the girls' achievements and the reasons for their scholarship. Hopefully this kind of recognition will motivate other girls to get their grades up and work hard. In addition, perhaps it will give the parents - arguably the most important factor in this whole thing - a more tangible result of all that studying and the hours spent at school. And maybe give them a reason to encourage continued study rather than begrudge it.

Will certainly post details and pictures of that event when it happens.

On a less happy note, my cat, Talata, never returned. It is now two months since I last saw his fluffy tail disappear into the night and I have long since given up any hope of him returning. I was distraught for a while, seeing Talata in every cat that had a smudge of black on its back, hearing his call with every sound that remotely resembled a cat's and expected his mischievous self to hop down from my bed when I entered my hut.

No such luck.

I tell myself that in the terror and confusion of a storm he wandered into a compound in a nearby village where a family took a liking to him and he's found a new bed to sleep on.

My other cat, Tennan, missed him terribly at first and took on a far more clingy and affectionate behavior after his vanishing act. Or that could possibly be because she is pregnant (and now no more than a week from giving birth) and her hormones are going nuts-o, making her super affectionate and clingy. I'll take a mixture of both in order to believe that she won't go back to the standoffish-independent cat she was before Talata left once her kittens are born.

Baby kitten pictures will follow, so stay tuned.

The rainy season is in full swing. Starting earlier in June than last year, the rains gradually increased from a smattering of once a week to a couple times a week to now nearly every other day. Reading through my journal from last year shows that August is the main month for rain (or at least it was last year), goes through September and then peters out by early to mid October. While I am enjoying the cooler, occasional totally overcast days, rain and greenery, the end cannot come soon enough. And for just one reason:

BUGS.

I am a walking buffet for all bugs that bite and probably for a few that just enjoy stinging innocent bi-pedals for fun. Ants, mosquitoes, spiders,  evil looking centipede things, and all manner of unidentified flying things like to take a bite of any exposed skin. I scratch - OF COURSE - so I've got all these lovely scabs on my legs and a couple on my arms which leads so many people in my village to ask why I don't used a mosquito net at night. Laughable, really, since I ALWAYS sleep under my net and they do perhaps a grand total of two weeks out of the entire year. They don't believe that mosquitoes are out all day long  - not even when I kill one in front of their eyes at 830am. "That one is just not normal," they tell me as I wipe the bug corps from my hand, often times accompanied by a couple drops of the blood the damn thing managed to suck out before I sent it to hell.

Saturated with information about malaria carrying mosquitoes, which DO in fact only come out at night and return to their god forsaken homes after the sun rises, the people in my area don't seem to know/understand that a bunch of different kinds of mosquitoes exist and that one or more are out hunting for tasty blood 24 hours and day, 7 days a week, with no holidays or vacation taken off. Even in the dead center of cold season - late December to early January - there are mosquitoes buzzing around. They just aren't as prevalent. I've tried teaching/talking about it to them, but they just shake their head and tell me that mosquitoes just like white people's blood more than black people's.

They have no idea of the influx of malaria patients at my Health Post.

Flies are another HUGE problem. I don't know what it is about rainy season - or even if the season has anything to do with it - but the flies are horrendous. They were last year as well, as my old journal reminds me. Humming incessantly in the background, landing on my food and body and face and hair and everything else that I just want to scream in disgust and irritation. What makes it worse is the fish my host family has been cooking these last few weeks.

Now, I can't eat the fish here. It makes me horribly sick. My family knows this - after a three day throw up session back in June last year - so they always wait to put the fish in the meal until after my bowl has been filled. I'm really glad for that because for the longest time they just didn't eat fish because of me and I felt horrible. This is the cheapest form of animal protein available to them and I hated that they didn't cook it because of me. Since Ramadan started - and I told my host moms I would take care of my own lunch - they've been having fishy concoctions for lunch.

And the remnants lie about ten feet from my hut.

I've never enjoyed the smell of raw fish. I tolerated it easily enough, but I was never about to go out and buy a Glade Plug-In that wafted the scent of raw cod through the house. Now, though, one whiff and I'm swallowing down bile. Worse than the smell: Flies and my cat bringing in the discarded guts and heads so she can munch and slurp and crunch in my room. These aren't your run of the mill house flies. These are much larger, shiny green flies that also haunt animal carcasses, latrines and the excrement of large animals.  They are loud. They are irrepressible and they invade my hut because of the close proximity to the tossed fish guts or follow the trail my cat leaves behind as she drags some of it into my hut.

I CAN'T STAND IT!

My journal that I kept last year has become a kind of road map to insect invasions. Frogs are already showing their annoying little faces in the large pools of collected rain water, a tease for the post rainy season plague that will come much too soon. According to myself a year ago, this overwhelming population of flies should vanish in the next week or so. But then again, my host moms did not throw fish guts ten feet from my hut last year. So I'm hoping they will heed my pleaded request for them to throw the fish guts in the other direction and save me from the urge to throw up when the wind blows through my windows. If not, I'll have to bury as much as I can as soon as I see them throwing the guts and hope they get the idea.

In the midst of GRE vocab flash cards, cat woes, scholarship stuff and insects, I've been trying to tweak my grant request for a well project to satisfy the requirements set down by Peace Corps. This weekend was spent in Kolda to get my bike repaired and to do the latest requested change. I'm hoping it is the last one and my next blog post can center around begging, pleading and perhaps throwing in a soupcon of guilting to collect money for some desperately needed wells. 330 people, 200+ cows...one well.

Not good.

Stay tuned for news on that point.

As I mentioned before, it is currently Ramadan - the month of fasting for Muslims all over the world. For thirty days, sun up to sun down, people do not eat or drink anything. Take a moment to think about that. No water. No food. From 530 am until 730 pm. It's Africa during the rainy, muggy, planting season. Ramadan doesn't put off going to the fields. It's still hot. There is still tons of work to do every day. Try it for one day. Or perhaps just a few hours. Your blood sugar drops and you get dehydrated. Grumpyness is a pathogen, infecting even the most docile person.

Ramadan is supposed to be a month spent in the mosque, praying and building your personal relationship with Allah, re-establishing faith, forgiving old wrongs and giving thanks for your family, friends and your life. But for subsistence farmers and others who much work every day in order to feed that family, the only thing Ramadan means is hunger, head aches, body aches, bad moods and spending a lot of money.

That latter aspect struck me as counter-intuitive last year. Expensive? But you aren't eating? The expense comes in the traditional meal before the fast begins each day and after it ends. Bread and coffee. A luxury most people here don't invest in more than perhaps once or twice a week, let alone twice a day. Not to mention Korite - the day of celebration marking the end of Ramadan - where new clothes and shoes are bought and tailored. A goat or ram is slaughtered, huge amounts of oily, seasoned riced are cooked and everyone gorges. The animal eaten - bought or taken from a family's own herd - is a huge expense. While rams in Dakar can go for over 200,000 CFA ($400), even the 25,000 CFA ($50) spent is a major cost - or loss of future revenue - for a rural family.

So, things aren't great during these 30 days. Saving grace is that it will be over on the 8th or 9th of this month. Fun fact about Ramadan: it follows the cycle of the moon, along the lunar Islamic calendar. Unlike Lent and Easter which occurs in roughly the same part of the year, Ramadan continually moves up 11 days every year. Next year Ramadan will start at the end of June. It will take just over 33 years for Ramadan to next land on these same dates. So during a certain period of time, Ramadan is during the more manageable cold season, where no planting or harvesting is done and the temperatures are far more tolerable. Other periods of time it lands in the worst possible time: April to May during extreme heat or October to November during the height of harvest.

My only regret at watching Ramadan end is the end of the fresh bread baked every evening by the three bread makers in my village. They only ever make bread during Ramadan; I can't even begin to explain why as demand for bread is year round. I've asked and they tell me they can't afford the flour when it isn't Ramadan. Demand is there. But the supply is not. I think there is an economics lesson there, but my micro-economics class was five years ago so I'm a bit rusty on the details.

The last thing I will mention in this epic post is the return of movie night.

I published a post just under a year ago about corporal punishment in this country and the utter lack of alternatives. Well, I found one: Taking away the thing they like/enjoy the most. In this case it was my tablet and movie showings.

For several months I showed a movie on my tablet in my compound every week (or close to it) for entertainment and for some fun conversations afterwards. After some initial zealous monitoring, I got comfortable and trusting of my siblings, letting them watch movies for the fourth or fifth time (I'm looking at you John Carter of Mars) while I sat somewhere else and read or hung out with my host moms. My rules were simple: one movie per night per week and DON'T TOUCH. My oldest brother quickly took over the responsibility of keeping the kids in line while watching the movie and after a while I allowed him to pause or skip ahead in the movie when the talking parts dragged out a little too long or dinner was ready.

I got too comfortable. One night I came back to the group to check on their progress and after a moment realized that the movie they were watching was not in fact the same movie I had started for them (which was Battleship, if anyone is curious. These aren't members of the Academy - action and movies where people have special powers are the only requirements for this audience). Startled, I asked who changed the movie (more of a rhetorical question as the only person who has any clue how to run my tablet is my oldest brother). Silence. These little buggers thought that I wouldn't notice the difference between a movie featuring Navy vs Aliens and a World War II movie.

So that was the end of movie night for about two months.

Two months of begging and pleading from my younger siblings; my oldest brother was alternately apologetic, insulted, confused and even possessive over my tablet and the incident. This irrepressible kid doesn't seem to realize that I was once 15 and lost privileges to things I liked as well. I know all the tactics. Standing behind someone, breathing down their neck after losing an argument over the use of that which is not yours does not actually reverse the decision. And unlike when I was 15 and did something to anger one of my parents, there is no appeal process to the other parent. The tablet is mine. There is no joint custody.

Sorry dude, I'm the supreme court of my own stuff.

Sentence: probation with a review in the unforeseen future. The result of which depending entirely on good behavior.

So two months later, after one of my other siblings asked me about Harry Potter and if I had those movies (he saw a friend with a Harry Potter t-shirt) I told them we could watch the movie on the following Saturday. Word spread very quickly. By the time we were ten minutes in I was surrounded by at least 20 people of varying ages.

I sat and watched it the whole time. Full of action and people with special powers, this genre is right up their alley and we've gone on to watch the second movie, which was even more fun to watch simply because of their reactions. Senegalese are deathly afraid of snakes for EVERY good reason. Give them a movie where there is a 60 foot snake chasing and biting at their beloved Harry Potter and you've got a potent recipe for screams and cheers that would make any movie producer smile.

The new rules are simple: we watch whenever the heck I feel like it and DON'T TOUCH. Touch, and it gets turned off. Complain that a movie YOU PICKED is bad and I turn it off. Bug and bother me about when we watch next and you wait longer.

Most of my siblings and even the neighbor kids have caught on and don't complain too much. My annoyingly persistent older brother, on the other hand, tried to negotiate terms with me strictly on frequency. He figured since it took a day to charge up my solar panel in order to charge my tablet after a viewing we could watch every three days (how nice of him to let me have the tablet all to myself for one night, right?). I take it all in good fun however, laughing at his form of logical reasoning (which included calculations of how many weeks I had left and the current bi-weekly viewing schedule, and that the next volunteer may not share his/her computer) to convince me to allow them to watch more movies. There was even a night about a week and a half ago where the subject of my non-too-imminent departure came up.

The dear wacko asked me if I would leave my tablet and movies behind so they could watch between my going home and the new volunteer arriving. At which time they would hand over my tablet and movies to be mailed back to me.

Bless him. I haven't laughed so hard in such a long time.

I've become a bit of a broken record on the subject of my replacement volunteer in so far as to say that they may not have an computer and even if they did, it is entirely up to them if they wish to share. I am making plans to write a letter to whomever takes up my hut in Badion with a list of probable stories they will be told of me to convince them to do things and the reality of my service. I won't tolerate my replacement having the wool pulled over their eyes or to feel obligated to share that which they would not feel comfortable sharing.

But again, that's 8 months away and I've got too much going on between times to get distracted.

So, kittens and Korite around the corner. Will post pictures. Our Health Summit is coming up in the beginning of September which requires a return trip to the Thies training center, where this whole adventure began 16 months ago. Can't believe it has already been that long.

Why does time seem to fly in hindsight?

Cheers!
Christine

Education Equal In Legal-ese Only

So I'm going to deviate from my usual posting MO and focus on one particular facet of Senegalese culture: namely the struggle for girls' education. This isn't unique to Senegal by any stretch of the imagination. I'm sure all of you have read, watched or listened to reports on the push to increase girls in schools around the developing world. I know there has been an emphasis on Muslim countries in recent years, but this is a big issue in all poorer countries with predominantly rural communities.

Senegal just happens to fall under all of those categories.

I should start by explaining that the education system here in Senegal is not funded by taxes or supported by a well equipped/funded national department. For kids to go to school their parents have to pay an 'inscription' fee each year, for each child. The price of which varies by grade level. For example, it costs about $8 for a kid to go to the equivalent of 6th thru 8th grade, and $10 for the equivalent of 9th grade. This may not seem like a lot, but when you have four or five or maybe say fourteen kids in school (as my host dad has) the cost becomes huge.

So obstacle number one to girls' continued education, if you hadn't guessed it yet, is an economic one.

Another lies in the basic cultural practices with regard to girls/women. Men rule in this country (as they do in most and used to overwhelmingly in all). Girls 'belong' to their fathers and are utterly at the mercy of their whims. Early [forced] marriage (pre-16) is still very common here in the rural parts of Senegal, despite the fact that it is actually illegal. Enforcement of such laws, unfortunately, is nearly impossible because of the egregious under-funding of the police force, lack of basic roads and communication lines to 'middle of nowhere' rural villages, and the huge disparity in deployment of forces. So if a father wants to marry off their daughter, there is little that can be done.

Further, the role of women in the larger cities is much more 'western' than their rural counterparts. Working for NGOs, the regional government, in stores and boutiques is way more common and possible. In a farm village (like all communities outside of regional capitols and the few large cities that are not capitols) the opportunity to make a living on your own is pretty much non-existent. You either get married and live with your husband or you live with your parents. There are a few exceptions of those girls who can go live with wealthier relatives in larger cities, but it is extremely rare.

Women raise children. That is their purpose. As I have been told far too many times by far too many men, if I do not have children I am not fulfilling my role as a woman and will bring shame to my father and God. (These are the same men, by the way, who want me to find them American wives...*eye roll*)

So, how does all of this apply to girls' education? Let's add up the issues.

Education is expensive. Girls belong to their fathers and their purpose in life is to have children. Enforcing current law is nearly impossible in rural communities where men typically have more children than those in cities (and more wives, which helps increase the child count).

Now, with these issues in mind, let's set up a scenario:

A man, whose only source of income is the peanuts, corn, millet and cotton he plants and harvests, has six children by two wives. The oldest is a girl of 14, followed by a 13 year old boy, a 10 year old girl and three younger boys of 9, 8 and 7. School year is coming up and his last harvest wasn't so great. His oldest kids are both going into sixieme (basically 6th grade). He cant afford to pay for both. The daughter (we'll call her Mata) is extremely smart and has been first in her class for the last three years. The son, on the other hand, is a lazy lout who has only barely managed to scrape by a pass each year.

There is a young man in the village who has expressed interest in Mata. She can cook well and is obedient. She's also physically well developed for her age. In the viewpoint of the father, Mata's greatest contribution would be to get married and start producing children. The boy, no matter how lazy he might be academically, can at least become a farmer in his own right, or perhaps move to a city and be a driver in the 'public transportation' system and support the family that way. Neither of which requires any more education than 'the school of life'.

What do you think the outcome of this scenario is?

How do we prevent Mata from being married off (illegally, I will add) and keep her in school?

Enter the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship run by the Peace Corps Senegal Gender Development program. This is one of the few projects in Peace Corps that has immediate, quantifiable results that has the real potential for 100% success rate. Nine of the top girl students in middle schools across the country (basically every single one that has a volunteer and any other that a volunteer can get to) are picked to have their inscription fees paid for the following school year, three of whom (one from each candidate grade of sixth, seventh and eighth) will be chosen for additional funds to buy supplies like notebooks, pens, pencils and erasers.

Since I returned from my sister's wedding in May I've been working with some amazing teachers and a great principal at my middle school to get this project done. It's been one of the most rewarding (if not the most) things I've done since I arrived in this country. The girls are all amazing, driven, incredibly smart and personable. Two of whom have recently (as in one as recent as two weeks ago) barely escaped forced marriage, only stopped by the fierce interventions by the principal and Sous Prefect (local official with the most power in the 'county' my village is in) who openly threatened the father with arrest if the marriages continued.

I was present at the recent 'intervention' meeting for this particular girl and I felt physically sick with rage and disgust at the attitude of her father. His entire reason for desiring the marriage was that he married his own wife when she was 15, so it was good enough for his daughter. This girl, who is first in her class and wants to be a math teacher, is terrified of her father and I couldn't find a single reason for her not to be. He was insulted and acted indignant at the mere idea that anyone had any right to 'barge in' on his family. She is his daughter after all. No one else had any say in the matter. When at last she had the opportunity to voice her opinion - that she did NOT want to get married - and the principal declared the matter over, he stood up in a rage, stormed from the meeting and left his wife and daughter behind as he rode his bike back to his own village.

[It should also be mentioned that this girl did not want to be married so much that she herself instigated the intervention meeting: she called her math teacher and asked him to take her to Mampatime - the nearest road town at 25km away - so she could talk to the police and find out her options. 99.9% of the time, this does not happen.]

For this next school year, at least, she will not be a financial burden to her father. Her inscription fee will be paid for and I've recommended her for the additional award to pay for supplies as well. Anything to keep her father from having an excuse to keep her out of school.

It costs about $180 to fund the 9 girls for each school. If you are interested in helping out, please go to this link: https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-CFD and put in the comments section of the donation page 'This donation is to support MSS scholarships in PCV Christine Smith's village of Badion”. 

Any money over the needed $180 received will be spread out to all other MSS scholarship projects that are still in need of funds, so the more people who donate the better chance a couple hundred girls will be able to go to school when they may not otherwise have been able/likely to.

I've learned a lot about myself in the last 16 months, including all those things I took for granted. Our American education system is far, far from perfect, but I didn't have to walk/ride my bike 4 - 8 miles to get to school and there was never a question of if  I would be able to go to school the next year. None of my girl friends in school had to compete with their brothers on who would get to go to school. As I look ahead to my return home and plans to take the GRE's (this November) and LSAT's (next June) so I might go to law school, all I can do is count my blessings that I was fortunate enough to be born in a society that makes my goals within my grasp rather than a pipe dream.

Cheers to all and a very Happy Fourth Of July!

-Christine

15 Down, 10 To Go

It's been quite a while since I last posted.  Three months (shy a couple days) and a lot has happened in that time. Had my second birthday in country, my sister got married (which also had the added bonus of providing 3 days in Disneyland) and the rains have started with quite a bang.

Or perhaps I should say it has started with a hurricane.

Case in point:

This is the remains of the compound next to mine. See the roof on the ground?
That was the kitchen.

I don't remember the season being like this last year, but then again it would be incredibly naive for me to expect all seasons to be the same. But I hadn't expected the severity. Two storms with these kinds of results in a 72 hour period reeks havoc on a culture that has so little to work with and so little cash on hand to pay for any materials the natural environment can't provide. But three days in a row of rain (as there was a small shower in between the storms) got the farmers pulling out their plows and taking inventory of tools. Huge truckloads of seed (corn, millet, peanuts, sorghum, etc) having been pulling into my village and being stored in the newly built 'warehouse' that was built during the cold season.

Another new addition to this rainy season is my cat, Talata, who has never experienced the terror that can be induced by sitting in a thatched roof mud/cement hut while a hurricane is blowing overhead. Last Friday night (the first storm) he got so freaked he jumped out of my window - which is a new addition to my hut and a welcome one for ventilation - and didn't come back until some hours later. Saturday night he vanished off into the darkness and I haven't seen him since. With all the debris from the crazy storm on Sunday I am extremely concerned about his well being.

Yes, I know, he is after all just a cat, and I have another one but (and I hide from all pet owners out there) Talata is my favorite. He is my snuggle buddy. My baby that I literally got up at midnight to feed when he was only a few days old. I look for him every time I go into my hut; my head swivels like a top at every sound that might be a cat and Tennan (my older, girl cat) misses him as well.

Never having a pet before in my life, I haven't faced the prospect of losing one and it is emotionally nerve wracking. I pray everyday that when I get back from my brief stay here in Kolda, upon my arrival back in village my siblings will run up and tell me that Talata has returned.

In other news:

I've been working on the Michelle Silvester Scholarship for my middle school. You can find info here: http://senegad.org/scholarship.html. Thankfully I've got a couple awesome teachers that are super motivated to get these girls the support they need to be able to continue their education. One of my candidates has already faced - and barely managed to avoid - an early marriage. It's been great talking to them and getting their opinions and views on the struggles and obstacles that young women face in their community. Also what they want to do with their lives. Lots of them want to be teachers themselves and talk about how much they want to continue their education even if they do end up married.

The process includes interviews, an essay, copies of grades, teacher recommendations and a home visit. All but the grades and the home visits are done, the latter of which I'll be doing with my closest neighbor, Julia Bowers. It's been super nice to be able to do something that actually has some visible results and is much more under my personal control than waiting for my work partners to get their crap together.

Which is what is going on with both my well projects.

New middle school is supposed to built at some point so they can't dig the well until they know where the buildings are going to go. This makes this more and more difficult now that the rains have started and are only going to get more frequent. It's hard to dig a well and get cement to dry when it is pouring down rain.

Second - potential - well project is for a village about 25 km away. This village is in dire need of wells (they want 2). Over 220 people share one well with cattle, donkeys, sheep, goats and horses. And this one well is over 200 m from the village. So not only do women have to carry that water back and forth, they do all their laundry there at the well. Soap, bleach seeps into the ground. Stagnant pools of water draw insects - primarily mosquitoes - around the well, upping the odds of malaria cases.

It's a bad deal all together and they chief of the village asked me for some help.

So there is some possible work on that front, but only if this village gets their stuff together so I can fill out the paper work, submit the grant, get the funding and dig both wells before March. I know, 9 months sounds like plenty of time. But it is in fact a tight squeeze. I'll just have to see how it goes.

I really can't believe that 15 months has already gone by. In some ways it feels like so, so much longer than that and in others it feels like I flew into this country just a couple weeks ago. I now really have less time ahead than behind and I catch myself thinking about what I've done and how I might have made a difference in this time.

Have I? No idea. Being here has certainly changed me and I've learned more about myself than I ever thought possible. But what of my impact on the community I live in? Positive? Negative? Does it even exist? Will there ever be any way to know if I made any difference at all?

Should I even worry about it?

Lots of lovely questions that I will probably never get the answers to, or at least not while I am here. Hindsight and perspective are requisite, I think, to make any conclusions about a term of service like this. So maybe this time next year when I'm agonizing over my looming LSATs and grad school/law school applications I'll be able to look back and make a real decision.

As for now, I'll keep one eye out for my cat and the other on getting my work done in the ever shrinking amount of time I have left.

Cheers!
Christine

One Year In

A year ago today I woke up for the second time in this country, befuddled, hot and suffering from a miserable head cold. Apparently my body decided to mark the occasion by having me relive the head cold part. Well, okay, it is really hot too, but I can deal with that. Head cold just makes it all that much worse.

But I'm not writing this blog to talk about head colds.

I remember having my site visit in April last year, looking at my host and all those other volunteers that were already a year in and thinking: they've got it together and they are so lucky they are half way done. Now I'm in that position - at least so far as that I have 12 months under my belt - and I do not feel at all that I have 'it together'. Perhaps they did not either, last year, but because of their ease of moving through the country and speaking to locals that I just thought they did. Impression is everything.

Will the new volunteers that come for their own visits next month think I have it all together?

I look at the year or so ahead of me (13 1/2 months to be more specific) and I wonder how I will fill it. I finally got the Malaria program put together for my health post which starts this month with murals and goes through June (one thing a month). But my plans for getting a well for the middle school are now over. A real school is actually going to be built by an NGO in the next couple months, which will include a well and latrines. So I will need to figure out some new ideas - perhaps some hygiene games on hand washing and such? - to fill up my time.

So, what will the next 400 days involve? What will I be doing? Who will I meet? How many more times will a man tell me that I need to have a husband and children or else I will dishonor my family? How many mangos will I manage to eat in one day? Will I ever win the battle against mosquitoes? Will my new computer survive the desolation of African weather? (My laptop that I brought from America has just recently given up the ghost. It is old - at 5 years - but I thought it would last a bit longer than 2 months. So now I will get a new one in California and pray to God a brand new, young thing will survive 11 months in this environment)

In the same way that I do not feel old enough to be a month shy of 26, I do not feel ready to be the '2nd year' volunteer that is supposed to help guide and aid new volunteers. But then, maybe the volunteers that are leaving now felt the same way last year when us newbies came. It is said that nothing is new under the sun; my feelings certainly are not unique on this particular subject. Perhaps there is some consolation in not being alone feeling the way I do.

Then again, there is a certain feeling of: "What? 12 months? Well, if I can do that, what's another 13 more? I'm still alive aren't I? Bring it on!" Despite all the downs in the last year, there have been quite a few ups and days of feeling like I have actually made some difference in my little village. So why not try to make one or two more differences - no matter how small - in the time I have left?

The school that is being built could provide a great opportunity for those little differences. The reason why this middle school is at last being built is because the bamboo structures that served as classrooms and the 'office' for the director burned down. To ash.

It happened a couple weeks ago and apparently ended up in the news. I was away in Dakar for my knee so I didn't know anything had happened until the Security guy for the Peace Corps came and told me about it. Afterwards there was this big to-do, where the national minister for education came to Badion.

Yeah, that's right. The big wig from Dakar who had never been south of the Gambia in his life came down in an entourage of cars to speak to my little village. There he promised to get a real school built and then talked about the importance of keeping kids in school, etc. The usual stuff. My interest in this particular event revolved around two people I met during the Minister's visit.

One was a personal adviser for the Minister who lived in America for 15 years, studied in Boston for is Bachelors and Master's degrees. He had only returned to Senegal in January and was still getting back into the swing of things. Since I'm white and I stick out like a sore thumb, he instantly approached me and asked me about my life, my work and what it is like to live in a rural community. But he also asked about the every day lives of the people in the village. What are their lives like? he asked me. What do they eat? What problems and challenges do they face? Do parents encourage their kids to go to school? Or do they keep them at home?

This man grew up in Dakar before going to America. He didn't know what it was like to live in the Senegal beyond Dakar and he loathed the fact that officials, students and everyday people in Dakar didn't have the slightest idea how the other 95% of the population lived. I've never heard anyone from Dakar talk this way so openly about the egregious disconnect between Dakar and the rest of the country so I was elated and eager to talk to him about his own impressions and goals in his new work. "Dakar is just like America," he told me. "At least in mentality and expectations. They care only about themselves and don't even think about the rest of the people who live here. I want the Minister to continue these visits. Maybe on a monthly basis. To go out all over to a few communities; to hear their concerns; see the way they live; how difficult it is to move around and get access to essential needs."

I could have hugged him.

He also mentioned the existence, at least on paper, of a national youth civil service program. Theoretically high school students from big cities - especially Dakar - would be required to spend a certain amount of time during their rainy season vacation in poor, rural communities doing volunteer work, education and trainings with younger students in the rural setting. It is a program that does not actually operate in real life but this adviser wants the Minister to resurrect it and put it into practice. "These kids in Dakar and St. Louis and other well off cities, they will go to University and will end up in charge of the country. Perhaps if they spend some time building relationships with families and communities outside of the riches of Dakar, they will remember and do something to help them once they are in a position to do so."

If only there were 1000 more of this man.

Delighted by this conversation I next ran into a man who was the director of supplies for the schools. A more opposite specimen of Senegalese than the man I just spoke to could not be found. "I am a real Senegalese," he told me in his strained English. "I'm not like these Pulaars. I only speak Wolof, French and some English." It took all my strength not to lash out and perhaps shove his pompous head into the window of his air conditioned car. "These people are better than you," I said in Pulaar, enjoying his confused look. "You don't understand?" I asked him, this time in English. He said no, of course not. "Too bad," I said with a shrug and walked away.

Even after all the grief I've been given by the people in my village, I will defend them to the last. They can be rude, obnoxious and down right mean, but they opened their homes, their lives, their faults and their dreams to me. There is little pretension or arrogance (at least that they can get away with now that  know them so well). Their lives are a hardship every day and they've taught me how to live the same. We make fun of each other, play pranks and drink tea together.

'Real' Senegalese? Puh-Lease. That statement proved he wasn't really Senegalese at all. He's from Dakar. Dakar is not Senegal.

And I've lost track of my original purpose for mentioning the school. Woops.

Once the school is actually built, with the well and latrines and all, I have a pretty good in with the teachers and hope to talk about using the latrines, washing hands with soap and other hygiene subjects. It's a big problem in my village, one I'd like to address more forcefully with those that may be more open to my advice and knowledge than the adults who are so ingrained in the ways of 'It's Africa. It is how it is.'

Will also, with the help of my friend and closest fellow volunteer, Julia, be working with the middle school to do what is called the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship which provides money and supplies to one deserving middle school girl student. So that will be going on in the next three months as well.

Then to my sister's wedding!! After which I'll have less than a year to go: the much awaited moment when I can say I have less time ahead than behind and check off months as the 'last _____' of my service.

The last year has taught me a lot about life, myself and how development aid does[n't] work. It's a real eye opener. While perhaps - if given the chance and foresight - I would not have made the same decision two years ago to apply to Peace Corps, I cannot and will not say that this has been a waste of time or that it has all been a big mistake. Perspective is everything. Looking back a year I see myself as I was and how I am now and I am not the same. Being here gives me a new vision of the world and how I want to spend my life (globe hopping as a foreign service officer is now not on the table. Having to move and settle then move again every 2-3 years sucks. I'd like to have a home, not a home of the moment) as well as a new sense of my limits and capabilities.

So, here is to another 13 months. May there be more highs than lows and more work to fill my days.

Cheers!
Christine